Coming soon: More tales of the megarich

Summary

Good Bad Billionaire – Preview: More Tales of the Megarich

BBC World Service | September 19, 2025
Hosts: Simon Jack & (likely Zing Tsjeng, misidentified as “Xing Singh” in transcript)

---

Episode Overview

This teaser episode introduces the upcoming season of Good Bad Billionaire, a BBC podcast delving into the journeys, ethics, and legacies of the world’s billionaires. Hosts Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng preview new stories, intriguing personalities, and unique global perspectives on wealth, power, and philanthropy. Their central challenge to listeners remains: after hearing these stories, do you consider these billionaires good, bad, or “just another billionaire”?

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

What is Good Bad Billionaire?

• The podcast aims to “dig into how the world’s billionaires built their fortunes, charting their rise from zero to a million, then from a million to a billion” (Simon Jack, 02:25).
• Listeners are invited to reflect on each billionaire’s character and impact, debating ethics, methods, and influence.

Central Questions of the Podcast

• “Are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?” (Zing Tsjeng, 02:33)
• The show explores not just accumulation, but what the super-rich do with their power and money.

The Growth of Billionaire Wealth

• Simon Jack highlights:

  “The world’s billionaires now control an estimated $16 trillion in combined wealth, more than the GDP of every country on earth except the US and China.” (Simon Jack, 02:38)

• Emphasizes the growing concentration of wealth and the necessity of this kind of scrutiny.

What’s Coming in the New Season?

• Deep dives into iconic and sometimes surprising figures:

  • Arnold Schwarzenegger: From Hollywood and politics to the billionaire club.
  • David Geffen: The legendary music and film producer.
  • Ronnie Screwala: Bollywood’s first billionaire.
  • Sarah Blakey: Innovator behind Spanx shapewear empire.
  • Luciana Benetton: Co-founder of the fashion label Benetton.

• Other sectors featured include:
  AI, aviation, property, online retail, shipping, steel, sports, circus, and tech startups (Simon Jack, 03:16).

• Notable anecdotes:

  • Profiles include:
    • “One tech founder who was once the youngest billionaire in the world.”
    • “One whose startup landed them in jail.” (Zing Tsjeng, 03:25)

• Listener influence:

  “We’ve included several billionaires suggested by you, our listeners.” (Simon Jack, 03:32)

The First Episode: Arnold Schwarzenegger

• The upcoming opener explores how “Arnie turned his unique acting talents into billions” (Zing Tsjeng, 03:35).
• Simon jokes: “And I also get to show off my unique acting talents.” (Simon Jack, 03:40)
• Zing responds playfully:

  “Well, if you want to judge Simon’s talents yourself, don’t forget to think, follow or subscribe... We’re back from the 6th of October.” (Zing Tsjeng, 03:43)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Wealth Concentration:

  “The world’s billionaires now control an estimated $16 trillion in combined wealth, more than the GDP of every country on earth except the US and China.”
  — Simon Jack, 02:38

• On Listener Participation:

  “We’ve included several billionaires suggested by you, our listeners.”
  — Simon Jack, 03:32

• On Upcoming Episodes:

  “We’ll be diving into the worlds of AI, aviation, property, online retail, shipping, steel, sport, circus—yes, circus—and tech startups.”
  — Simon Jack, 03:16

• Friendly Banter:

  “And I also get to show off my unique acting talents.”
  — Simon Jack, 03:40

---

Important Timestamps

• 02:17 – 02:47: Introduction; podcast premise and question of “good, bad, or just another billionaire.”
• 02:47 – 03:07: Discussion of wealth concentration and growing importance.
• 03:07 – 03:25: Preview of new season’s subjects and sectors.
• 03:32 – 03:43: Listener involvement and details on the season’s start.
• 03:43 – 03:52: Hosts’ banter and podcast subscription reminder.

---

Closing Thoughts

This teaser sets the stage for a sweeping, global, and lively examination of how billionaires create, use, and sometimes abuse their fortunes. With a mix of historical icons and modern innovators, Season 2 promises compelling stories, thoughtful analysis, and the ever-present question: Will you consider these billionaires good, bad, or something more complex?

---

Next Episode Launches: October 6th, 2025.
Follow, subscribe, and get in touch to influence future episodes!

Transcript

[Simon Jack]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Advertiser]

In business they say you can have better, cheaper or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage and 80% less for networking better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com strategic that's oracle.com strategic.

[Indeed Advertiser]

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com just go to indeed.com podkatz13 right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed. On this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

Hello, I'm Xing Singh.

[Simon Jack]

And I'm Simon Jack and we're here.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

To tell you about a brand new season of Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

[Simon Jack]

It's the podcast where we dig into how the world's billionaires built their fortunes, charting their rise from zero to a million, then from a million to a billion.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

Then we ask you to answer the question, are they good, bad or just another billionaire?

[Simon Jack]

The world's billionaires now control an estimated $16 trillion in combined wealth, more than the GDP of every country on earth except the US and China.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

So as the concentration of wealth continues to grow, we think it's more more important than ever to take a look at how these individuals made their money.

[Simon Jack]

This season will tell the surprising story of how Hollywood actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger made it to the billionaire ranks, as well as film and music producer David Geffen and Bollywood's first billionaire, Ronnie Screwala.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

We'll look at the names behind some big brands such as Sarah Blakey, the woman behind Spanx, and Luciana Benetton, the co founder of fashion label Benetton.

[Simon Jack]

We'll be diving into the worlds of AI, aviation, property, online retail, shipping, steel, sport, circus, yes, circus, and tech startups.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

Including one tech founder who was once the youngest billionaire in the world and one whose startup landed them in jail.

[Simon Jack]

And we've included several billionaires suggested by you, our listeners.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

To kick off the new season, we'll be looking at how Arnie turned his unique acting talents into billions.

[Simon Jack]

And I also get to show off my unique acting talents.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

Well, if you want to judge Simon's talents yourself, don't forget to think, follow or subscribe to Good Bad Billionaire so you don't miss an episode. We're back from the 6th of October.

[Simon Jack]

We'll be back.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Simon Jack]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Simon Jack]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global story.

[Xing Singh / Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Simon Jack]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.